Justina Robson's central concept in this book is a truly frightening one. In this novel she has imagined a world of the near future where the brain is the new frontier. Dr Natalie Armstrong is using nanotechnology to create a model of how the human brain works. All well and good and non-threatening you might think but think again of what this world is really like...

Computers have spread all across our modern world, bringing convenience and entertainment to us all. But along with all the good stuff computers have brought to our lives, there is a downside. Everyday we have to clear out dozens of spam emails, avoid phishing attacks and ensure we have the latest virus and firewall software installed so as to prevent malicious hackers taking over our computers. So if you have little machines in your brain to just what malicious uses could these be put?

Armstrong's intentions are good, she sees just the positive benefits of her work. Other characters can see another use. One of these is a man who (at the novel's present) calls himself Mikhail Guskov, a con-man who has lived under many names and can see a way of twisting Armstrong's work. Another is a Native American FBI Agency specialising in scientific matters, who has been tracking Guskov, and whose investigation has brought him to Natalie.

As I said at the beginning the concept at the centre of this book is scary, and this is mainly due to its plausibility. Robson has moved our world forward just a few years, so this is totally recognisable. She has not introduced new technologies, ones that would have no grounding in our current existence. She's just applied a couple of tweaks here and there.

We know that there are people like Guskov in the world - who would use any means to gain something for themselves, irrespective of the harm it would cause each other. If we really introduced machines into our brains we would be laying ourselves open to them. This is a tense thriller, there is a real underlying dread pervading throughout.

It's not an easy book to read. Robson's prose is dense, and takes time to penetrate. But it is worth the effort. This is the science fiction of the idea, the big thing is the concept. If you like touchy-feely sf this isn't your book. This is the novel for the reader who wants to know how it all works.

Synopsis

The map of everything you know
everything you are
everything you ever will be
just got rewritten.

A novel of hard SF exploring the nature of identity both inherited and engineered, from one of Britain?s most acclaimed new talents. In the near future, when medical nanotechnology has made it possible to map a model of the living human brain, radical psychologist Natalie Armstrong sees her work suddenly become crucial to a cutting-edge military project for creating comprehensive mind-control. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Jude Westhorpe, FBI specialist, is tracking a cold war defector long involved in everything from gene sequencing to mind-mapping. But his investigation has begun to affect matters of national security-throwing Jude and Natalie together as partners in trouble-deep trouble from every direction. This fascinating novel explores the nature of humanity in the near future, when the power and potential of developing technologies demand that we adapt ourselves to their existence-whatever the price.